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This past weekend, I thought quite a bit about how to blog the Barack Obama presidency. There were several ideas -- a news blog with snarky commentary about everything he does; a satire blog dedicated to "Our Messiah," etc. But to tell you the truth, right now I don't feel very adversarial. I know too many good people who voted for the guy. And the last thing that I want to see is a repeat of the last 8 years of vulgar, unhinged hatred like that which has been given to President Bush. I don't want to suffer from Obama Derangement Syndrome, comparing him to Hitler or Stalin on a daily basis, accusing him of murder and bloodlust, threatening impeachment at the drop of a hat, and denouncing half of the country as vile, terminally stupid cretins. I have a life to live, and that level of hating takes way too much effort.

On the other hand, our nation is desperately in deed of guardians, people who are willing to look at Obama's ideas with a critical eye and offer opinions about them, rather than blindly accepting everything and filling the airwaves and cyberspace with propaganda. Sadly, the mainstream news media in this country is no longer capable of fulfilling that role.

The mainstream media's bold uncuriosity about Obama's past (save for the carefully-crafted narratives supplied by Obama's handlers and Obama himself -- and remember how awful it was for George W. Bush to be "uncurious"?) was both frustrating and at times comical. They could dig up John McCain's torturer in Vietnam, and they had no problem attempting to solicit dirt on Cindy McCain from teenage friends of the McCain children via Facebook messages, and they could rush a gaggle of investigative reporters onto the next flight to Anchorage to dredge up everyone and everything ever associated with Sarah Heath Palin.

But they could never be bothered to assemble major investigative pieces that included interviews with the "Marxist professors" Obama claims he hung out with in college, or the occupants of the neighborhoods that he represented (with the exception of one newspaper, The Boston Globe), or interviews with high school or college buddies with whom he admitted attending "socialist conferences," or his high school or college drug dealers; or extensive front-page profiles of Chicago cronies like Anthony Rezko or his long-time mentor and adviser William Ayres. They begrudgingly reported on Obama's impoverished extended family only after being scooped by the foreign press and (again) one newspaper, The Boston Globe. Most major pieces on Obama were published 9 months ago or longer -- much longer -- and the mainstream media had no desire to keep the information in those articles above the page fold in the weeks leading up to the election.

Truth is, with few exceptions, we've completely lost the skeptical inquirers who once populated the ranks of the American mainstream news media. They no longer see a need to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," perhaps because they believe that with Barack Obama in charge, the Federal Government will do that job for them. They've admitted their biases. They are in the tank for the Obama Administration, and they are committed to the success of his administration, objectivity be damned.

So what can I do as a blogger? What can you do as an average citizen?

For starters, stay positive. Stay hopeful. No one, except for a few fringe kooks, really wants to see our nation suffer. We simply have different ideas about what a prosperous future for America should look like. Conservatives want a community of free individuals. Liberals want a collective managed by a benevolent government. It's okay to oppose ideas that you believe are harmful. It's okay to oppose ideas that chip away at the core values of America. Columnist Cliff May notes:

Give Obama his due: It is an exceptional politician who can win the
support of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, and Kenneth
Duberstein, former chief of staff to President Reagan; of William
Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist and Christopher Buckley, son of William
F. Buckley, founder of modern conservatism; of Rashid Khalidi, an
Israel-hater, and Edgar Bronfman, former head of the World Jewish
Congress. Here's a not-very-bold prediction: A year from now, someone
is going to be sorely disappointed. (emphasis added)

We can clearly define the concepts of voluntary community and individual freedom. There will be passionate arguments about birthrights, about heritage, about privilege, about what we are owed by our government and about how those debts are to be paid. We can explain that in America, the state does not -- and should not -- define the individual. We can argue that the individual should never be forced to turn over whatever he has to the state, even for seemingly benevolent purposes. We can champion individual charity, which is conspicuously absent among socialist European nations that heavily tax and regulate their citizens. I could go on, but you get the idea.

It's also okay to be funny - apparently Comedy Central isn't interested in the presidency any more, so the market for White House humor is now wide-open. Maybe they spent all their creative energy on Li'l Bush and That's My Bush. Or maybe they're still struggling to come up with a good double entendre for "Obama." At any rate, nothing should stop us from having some good clean fun with the Presidency and Congress.

What ever we do, the ultimate goal should be dialog. During this campaign, the press deliberately chose to end dialog and replace it with directive, based on their narrative of how a better America should be achieved. Many conservatives recognized this, and out of frustration they hit back with extremely partisan commentary that further eroded the ability to reasonably discuss the election and the ideas of the candidates.

For my part, I am planning to launch a series of dialogs on my blog. I'll suggest a topic (something like "how do we define centrist?") and then invite bloggers and commenters to contribute their thoughts. Hopefully such dialogs will help to build a loyal readership base (something I have yet to really successfully accomplish) and at the same time, contribute something positive to the national conversations about current problems and how government should (or should not) involve itself in their solutions.

It seems to me that now, blogs really are "alternative media," and if you are looking for informative discussion instead of instructional propaganda, you will be looking for those discussions online. Join me, won't you?

Michelle Malkin has a chilling round-up of violent reactions and threats made by unhinged gay activists in California in the wake of Tuesday's Proposition 8 victory. Proposition 8 specified that "marriage" is solely the union of a man and a woman. Some incidents being reported:

A San Diego man physically assaulted his elderly neighbors because of a Proposition 8 sign in their yard

Commenters and bloggers on radical gay sites are threatening to disrupt weddings, physically assault or kill Prop 8 supporters, and burn down churches

Last year, Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern made a speech about the radical gay agenda. She compared the danger posed by radical gays to that posed by terrorists (the same comparison Rosie O'Donnell made concerning Christian fundamentalists). You can agree or disagree with what she said, but Rep. Kern simply made a speech. A speech. No threats, no intimidation, no physical violence. Yet she was creamed by liberal blogs, gay activists, and show business personalities for what she said.

Fast-forward to today, to the aftermath of Prop. 8. Think the mainstream press will make page one news out of it these unhinged threats? Think Ellen Degeneres will call Lawrence Pizzicara and demand to know why he attacked his neighbors? The only reaction we'll get from the liberal chattering class is the sound of crickets chirping.

Assault, arson, murder. I dunno ... it sure sounds like terrorism to me.

_____________________________________________________________

One more thing - if gay rights groups hate Christians and the institutionalized church so much, then why do they demand marriage, which is a religious sacrament performed by licensed clergy? Why would they want the church involved at all? If the whole "gay marriage" thing is nothing but an "equal protection under the law" issue, then why not promote secular civil unions, administered by the state and completely void of any religious affiliation? Wouldn't that make things simpler for everyone?

I believe that legalizing "gay marriage" will only pave the way for radical gay activists to begin to harass religious organizations with discrimination and equal protection lawsuits -- particularly churches that are clear in their refusal to perform gay wedding ceremonies. Is that what we really want? Let's give gays equal protection through civil unions, and leave "marriage" out of it.

...

ADDED: My blog friend LaShawn Barber, who is sickened by the "gay marriage=civil rights movement" argument of radical gay activists, notes that California already allows state-sanctioned domestic partnerships. Perhaps this is why Californians continually vote to keep marriage sacred -- a measure similar to Proposition 8 passed with 61% of the vote in 2000, only to be struck down by the California Supreme Court this year.

It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. "YOU NIGGER," one man shouted at me. "If your people want to call me a FAGGOT, I will call you a nigger."
Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the
temple...me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and
a young WeHo clone said after last night the niggers better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.

I believe that gay activists should simply face the truth: "Thus far, 30 states have outlawed homosexual "marriages" by an average
close to 70% approval by voters through amendments to the state
constitutions." There is clearly an opposition among the general public to gay marriages. Not domestic partnerships or civil unions for gays, but gay marriage.

Gay activists can attack religious groups until they are blue in the face, but the election results clearly indicate that the opposition to gay marriage goes way beyond hard-core fundamentalist Christians, and deep into the mainstream of America. They can falsely accuse the Christian Coalition and other groups of staging hate or fear campaigns, but the truth is that such tactics (were they employed) could never consistently deliver two-and-a-half to one opposition to gay marriage, if people really believed in their hearts that it was a civil right necessary for a free and prosperous nation. Hatemongers like Fred Phelps are not the driving force behind the opposition to gay marriage.

Unfortunately, gay rights activists are even less capable of swaying popular opinion in their favor than the Religious Right. Gay activists have been, for the most part, obnoxious, intimidating, vulgar, and violent, and they have delighted in scandalizing and deliberately offending their opponents. This makes many people (including myself) continually fearful of what their next move is going to be.

Perhaps the gay community should start by firing the current group of malcontents and agitators currently leading its protests, publishing its newspapers and magazines, and writing its blogs. Find people instead who are willing to have conversations. Dialog is the key here, not shouting obscenities through a bullhorn or engaging in crude stereotyping and name-calling. The sincerity and civility that gay activists use to address and motivate their own people should carry over to their conversations with community and religious leaders. In other words, don't become like Fred Phelps in order to stop Fred Phelps.

Or maybe the gay community could involve its people in a series of smaller, proactive projects that create a more direct and positive impact in local neighborhoods. For example, sponsoring a food or clothing drive during the holidays for needy families will garner much more support than marching through the streets wearing leather and chains and yelling into bullhorns. It's all about winning people's trust, rather than bullying or frightening them.

And why did it fail? Would you believe ... "People who were already able to afford health care began to stop
paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the
administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I
don't believe that was the intent of the program."

No shit, Sherlock. But can you blame them? Think about it. You and your wife both work, you make a decent living, and then get gouged by the government through taxes so you can have the privilege of paying for someone else's health care, while barely being able to afford your own. Who wouldn't want to get back just a little of what they were forced to pay into the system?

The reason for this, of course, is that the failure of socialized medicine in Hawaii doesn't fit "the narrative." It doesn't jibe with the image of the compassionate Big Rock Candy Government lending a helping hand to anyone in need, and the unteachable, pitifully-ignorant masses wiping the tears from their eyes and kissing the feet of their Dear Leaders, unspeakably grateful to them for "leveling the playing field" and "spreading the wealth around."

...

The next item is the endorsement of Barack Obama by Colin Powell. Powell is a Republican (Ooooooooo!) and served as Secretary of State during George W. Bush's first term, so the cable networks, mainstream media bloggers, and newspapers have been wild with anticipation about it all weekend -- there used to be a lot of buzz among Republicans about a Colin Powell presidential run, and if Powell is endorsing Obama, then that must mean that a lot of Republicans will give Obama a second look, and if that happens ... so you see why the mainstream media is so excited.

Now let's look at another interesting political endorsement -- the endorsement of John McCain by JOE LIEBERMAN. Remember him? The 2000 DEMOCRAT VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE? Bet you didn't even hear about that endorsement, unless you read a lot of conservative blogs. Where is the media hype? Where is the buzz? Where is the day-in/day-out news cycle coverage of his continued campaigning for McCain? Why isn't every Sunday talking-head show chattering endlessly about it?

I'll tell you why -- if Lieberman is endorsing McCain, then a lot of disgruntled/PUMA/conservative/redneck Democrats might give McCain a second look, and if that happens ... which doesn't fit the narrative of an Obama landslide of hope and change on Nov. 4. So it cannot be discussed, period.

...

Finally we come to "Joe the Plumber," Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, a plumber's apprentice from Ohio who was approached by Barack Obama last week during an afternoon of door-to-door campaigning by The One. Wurzelbacher committed the unpardonable sin -- he coaxed His Holiness into giving an off-the-cuff speech, sans teleprompter, and Obama made a little Marxist Freudian slip. John McCain seized upon Obama's slip and mercilessly beat him with it during last Wednesday's debate.

The dirt-diggers started Googling. And the next morning, six-term Sen. Biden launched
the first salvo against the Ohio entrepreneur on NBC’s Today Show,
challenging the veracity of his story: “I don’t have any ‘Joe the
Plumbers’ in my neighborhood that make $250,000 a year.” (Does Biden have ANY plumbers in his neighborhood? -ed)

... Wurzelbacher never claimed to be making $250,000 a year. He told Obama
that he might be “getting ready to buy a company that makes about
$250,000, $270,000″ a year. His simple point was that Obama’s punitive
tax proposals would make it more difficult to realize his dream.

Obama’s followers couldn’t handle the incontrovertible truth. Left-wing blogs immediately went to work, blaring headlines like “Not A Real $250k Plumber!” Next, they falsely accused
Wurzelbacher of not being registered to vote (he’s registered in Lucas
County, Ohio, and voted as a Republican in this year’s primary).

... Then, suddenly, the journalists who wouldn’t lift a finger to
investigate Barack Obama’s longtime relationships with Weather
Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright sprang into action
rifling through citizen Joe Wurzelbacher’s tax records. Politico.com
reported breathlessly: “Samuel J. Wurzelbacher has a lien placed
against him to the tune of $1,182.92. The lien is dated from January of
‘07.” Press outlets probed his divorce
records. The local plumbers’ union, which has endorsed Obama, claimed
he didn’t do their required apprenticeship work and didn’t have a license to work outside his local township. (DailyKos also published Wurzelbacher's home address. -ed)

... After Wurzelbacher told Katie Couric that Obama’s rhetorical tap dance was “almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.,” the inevitable cries of “bigotry” followed. (There are now tens of thousands of hits on the Internet for “Joe the Plumber racist.”)

A commenter noted, "Obama says the words "a plumber making $250,000 a year" with such disdainful contempt. Like a mere plumber couldn't possibly
work his way into the elite white-collar tax bracket that Obama and his
Ivy League pals inhabit, oh no, that's a laughable presumption for
peasants like Joe."

Jim Treacher observed, "Is it just me, or have we seen more vetting of an Ohio plumber in the
last 2 days than we've seen of Obama's mentor William Ayers all year?
(Not to mention Obama himself!) Both Bill and Joe are embarrassing to
Obama because they've given us glimpses of his true nature, and yet
only one of them is being put through the wringer. Only one of them has
to fear for his job. Weird, huh?" He also notes, "The whole "He's not a licensed plumber!" non sequitur is really
fantastic. So, if you happen to be standing in front of Obama when he
publicly reveals his socialism, what does the media do? Demands to see your papers. That's just delicious, is what that is."

Well here's a funny thing, Mr. Messiah-to-Assholes. I happen to know an honest, hard-working young man who is an apprentice plumber. He is not "licensed." Currently he manages a plumbing supply store. Yet a friend and customer of his, a retiring plumber, really, really likes my friend and has offered to sell him his plumbing business when he retires. When that happens, of course, my friend will get his license and join the union. Incredibly, it happens all the time! So thank you, Barack Obama, for making it perfectly clear how you feel about people like my friend -- "Screw you, you'll never be successful, and I only give a shit about you when it makes me look good. And here's your puny tax cut, because you're too dumb to ever make enough money to afford my glorious tax increases."

I've written a lot during the past few months with regard to concerns that I have about an Obama presidency. But finally -- FINALLY -- I can tell you without reservation why Obama in the White House scares the living shit out of me. Well, actually I think I'll let IowaHawk tell you:

Politicians -- Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, et al. -- obviously have to
put up with some rude, nasty shit, but it's right there in the jobs
description. Joe the Plumber is different. He was a guy tossing a
football with his kid in the front yard of his $125,000 house when a
politician picked him out as a prop for a 30 second newsbite for the
cable news cameras. Joe simply had the temerity to speak truth (or, if
you prefer, an uninformed opinion) to power, for which the
politico-media axis apparently determined that he must be humiliated,
harassed, smashed, destroyed. The viciousness and glee with which they
set about the task ought to concern anyone who still cares about
citizen participation, and freedom of speech, and all that old crap
they taught in Civics class before politics turned into Narrative
Deathrace 3000, and Web 2.0 turned into Berlin 1932.0.

Make no mistake about this. This is pure Nazi-style propaganda. You want to Godwin me? Fine. But the media's obsession with Joe The Plumber is meant for one thing and one thing only, which is to distract you from what Barack Obama actually said in reply to Joe's question. That's a primary function of propaganda, and the media is serving it up in heaping spoonfuls right now.

When radicals went a little crazy and burned down the Reichstag in 1933 (the assembly hall for the Wiemar German Parliament) Adolf Hitler and his minions wasted no time demanding an "investigation" into the fire, while stirring up fear of an impending violent revolution if "something wasn't done" about the German Communist Party. The Nazis quickly fixed blame for the fire upon a group of Communist operatives, and Chancellor Hitler wasted no time petitioning President von Hindenburg to enact restrictions aimed at limiting the influence of the Communist Party in Wiemar Germany. With the Communist party outlawed, the Nazis and their sympathizers were able to easily win control of Parliament. And because they were caught up in the sensationalism of the Riechstag fire conspiracy, average Germans failed to notice that the real purpose of Hitler's decrees was to limit all civil liberties in Germany, and outlaw every publication critical of the Nazi cause. Hitler had successfully used the Reichstag fire to distract Germans just long enough to establish the mechanism that would enable him to gain absolute power over the German government. The man was a master of smokescreen propaganda.

With the exception of African-Americans (and I do wonder if they’re
doing better since welfare changed in the 1990s), America is still
a singularly fluid social and economic country. That’s part of why,
despite our vast immigrant influxes, we don’t have the banlieus of
France (riot central a few years ago, as you may recall), or the
tremendous immigrant unrest one sees in other European countries such
as Germany, Italy and England. Our immigrants start poor, work hard
and, always, have the possibility of “moving on up” — and this is true even if not all of them are able to act upon that possibility. It’s the American dream.

Obama’s plan, however, announces the end of the American dream. In
Obama’s USA, there’s no benefit to be had in moving on up. If you move
to the head of the line, his government is just going to bat you right
back down again.

There’s no doubt, of course, that those who are really, really rich
will probably still stay fairly rich, because their vast wealth may
take decades of government siphoning before it vanishes entirely. The
problem is that those who wish to be rich — and who for America’s whole
history could reasonably make that happen — will never get rich in
Obama’s America. That’s what Obama told Joe the Plumber.

America just heard the President Presumptive tell them, essentially, “don’t dream too big. Don’t dare to dream too big, because if you do, we’re just going to chop you down to size, so that everyone is the same.”

That is not an American recipe. It is a recipe that’s been tried
several times and all it ever does is sap people of ambition,
creativity and freedom. What’s the point in excelling if your
excellence will be the equal of mediocrity? What’s the point of
dreaming, if your dreams are going to be subject to the whims of others?

America likes its dreams, its ambitions and its freedoms. Between Obama’s slip-of-the-tongue and the increasingly troubling stories of voter fraud - excuse me, voter registration fraud (which is mean to enable voter fraud) - rampant in one state after another, he’s making a lot of Americans wary.

America is the can-do nation; it does not like being told it can’t do something. Americans do not like being told not to dream glorious dreams.
They do not like being told that excellence must subdue itself. And
they really don’t like cheating the vote. And while Americans may
tolerate little lies, the big, bold ones can get under their skin.

Things turn on a dime. This election may well turn not on who “Joe
the Plumber” is - but who Barack Obama is revealing himself - finally -
to be.

Team Messiah knows this. They really do. That's why they've resorted to harassment and intimidation in order to suppress any effort to connect Obama with William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. That's why they want to shut down conservative talk radio and blogs with the "Fairness Doctrine." That's why they've targeted Sarah Palin. That's why they are destroying Joe The Plumber. And they will continue to take away your right to free speech and destroy average people as long as it allows them to keep their precious 'Obama Is Our Savior' narrative untarnished.

Hitler had his gangs of youth -- not really card-carrying Nazis, so their association could be disavowed whenever it was beneficial -- to do his dirty work. And today's liberal media has the loony fever-swamps of Daily Kos and Democratic Underground and MoveOn.org. They're not official paid members of the Obama Campaign or staff writers at The New York Times, but somehow they always end up being go-to sources every time the mainstream media needs pro-Obama dirt for its front pages.

It is now obvious beyond all counter-reasoning that the very things liberals accused Bush and Cheney of promoting -- fascism, statism, intimidation, persecution -- are the very same tactics that liberals can't wait to employ against enemies of the Messiah once they assume power. The difference is that you would have a damn hard time finding specific examples of exactly how Bush and Cheney intimidated, persecuted, and indoctrinated average Americans. Yet I've just given you a whole laundry list of examples of how Obama supporters on the Internet, in the mainstream press, and perhaps eventually in the Commerce Department, Justice Department, IRS, and Congress, will do whatever it takes to establish Obamaism as the lone ideology that is legal in the United States. Any dissenters will be castigated as liars, capitalist thieves, and racists. That's going to be the big one. RACIST.

Of course we still have the power to vote. And in 2010, if we no longer approve of our new socialist overlords, we can vote them out. Just like we did in 1994. Because unlike 20th century Europeans, we Americans still have the power to decide our own destiny.

The radical-left anti-war group Code Pink successfully pranked the mainstream media by creating a phony "press release" attributed to the disgraced Blackwater private security firm. The phony press release announced that Blackwater was hiring a new "Public Integrity" director whose job was to "put the mercy back in 'mercinary.'" And CBS News, the AP, and the blog Politico.com all fell for it. Sheesh.

This seems to fall into a pattern of bias that has been observed for some time: press releases from left-leaning organizations (or as in this case, press releases with a heavy dose of lefty "truthiness") are gobbled up by the mainstream media with little or no fact checking or balanced response.